Vest is president of the D.C.-based National Academy of Engineering, which recently announced its top awards for 2012. The Draper Prize, which honors inventions that benefit society, will go to the group of engineers who developed the LCD screen. The Gordon Prize, which honors advances in engineering education, will go to a group of professors who revolutionized the way engineering design is taught at California’s Harvey Mudd College. Both prizes are worth $500,000. How do you choose the winners for the prizes?
The award winners for both of these prizes are picked by a year-long committee process, in which experts in the field comb through the set of nominations. It’s very carefully done.
What do you think the LCD screen has brought to the world?
Almost every television, computer, smart phone, automobile display that you look at and use today is based on LCD technology that was developed in three steps by the people who are being recognized here. George Heilmeier developed the basic technology that gave us the first operating black-and-white LCD display. Those first showed up in watches and things like that. Then the next two people, Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt, really made this technology practical in larger displays that had much higher contrast, so it began to show up on computers. Then Peter Brody improved on that, and did the work that made these full color displays. Now there’s nobody walking down the street that doesn’t use this technology.
And the teaching at Harvey Mudd?
It’s one thing to teach engineers how to analyze things and solve equations. It’s something else to sit down with an idea and create a product that can be manufactured and marketed. This group developed a very hands-on approach that brings young people along fairly quickly to be able to design real devices.
— Liz Essley
